Swedish Tech Weekly #282



Welcome to the latest from Sweden's startup & tech sector.

I'm Martin Weigert. Swedish Tech Weekly brings you a selection of some of the news I covered in my PRO newsletters last week, and is sent to 2633 subscribers today.

Mergers & acquisitions

• Vinter (Stockholm, index provider for crypto assets) has been acquired by French industry peer Kaiko (English).

• Marathon Software, Stockholm-based investment firm specialized in niche software companies, acquires a majority of Troman, a Gothenburg-based supplier of a politician platform for managing trustees in Sweden's municipalities and regions (English).

• Ridesum, Stockholm-based digital training app and collaboration platform for riders which went bankrupt in September, has been acquired by the Swedish company Fascia Horse (English).

• The Norwegian agtech company Agdir intends to buy the assets of publicly traded Lund-based developer of a satellite system for precision farming Vultus (English).

Funding news

Do you have unreported funding news you want to see here? Fill out this form or respond to this email.

• Magma, formerly Matteappen (Stockholm, math learning app for schools): $20M in a funding round led by the US growth equity firm Five Elms Capital, primarily for the continued US expansion. The investors also acquire existing Magma shares for an additional $20M (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Mindler (Stockholm, digital service for talking with psychologists): SEK38M (€3.3M, $3.5M) mostly from existing investors (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Forsway (Skövde, cost-efficient hybrid satellite terrestrial solutions and equipment for broadband connectivity): €2.3M ($2.4M) grant from the European Space Agency, to build Xtend 5G, an independent satellite connectivity system (English).

• DB24 (Gothenburg, database automation tool): SEK18M (€1.6M, $1.6M) led by Almi Invest (Swedish, machine translation).

• Nordic Air Defence (Stockholm, high tech defensive solutions for both civilian and military use): €1.2M ($1.3M) led by SNÖ Ventures (English)

• Indivd (Sundsvall; AI-powered technology for retailers to monitor foot traffic patterns, dwell times in specific areas, and points of interest, while maintaining complete anonymity): SEK14M (€1.2M, $1.3M) from new and existing investors, including Carl Setterberg and Per Setterberg (English).

• DREM (Stockholm; seamless solution for heat pump deployment in residential properties): €1M (€860K, $920K) from existing investors Peak, byFounders, Redstone, and Futurum Ventures, to fuel the company’s expansion into France (English).

• TERASi (Stockholm; maker of compact, lightweight and efficient hardware for 5G & 6G): SEK4M (€340K, $370K) grant from Vinnova (English).

• Rebaba (Stockholm, developer of circular battery systems) and Nordic Bio-Graphite (Stockholm, technology to produce fossil-free graphite from bio-based materials at scale) each receive SEK1M (€86K, $91K) in prize money from winning this year's Startup 4 Climate competition (Swedish, machine translation).

• LignoFlow (Stockholm, technology for the processing of lignin for scalable bio-based materials): SEK1M (€86K, $92K) grant from Vinnova (English).

• EQT Ventures led a $18M Series A funding round raised by US startup Odyssey, which develops technology for generative worlds for film, gaming, and more (English).

• Luminar Ventures co-led a $3.1M seed round raised by Norway-based startup Deckmatch, which offers a solution for private market investors to automate workflows, and also just launched the Beta version of AlphaLens, a tool targeting founders and operators helping them to find other companies building something similar as them (English).

• Pale blue dot led a $2M pre-seed round raised by Norway-based all-in-one map builder Atlas (English).

• Norrsken VC invested an undisclosed amount in pre-seed funding in UK-based startup Quadrivia, which is developing an AI assistant for clinicians (English).

• In a follow-on investment, Backing Minds led a €3.5M seed round raised by Denmark-based startup NitroVolt, developer of technology to produce green ammonia. EQT Foundation also participated (English)

• For PRO subscribers: 10 additional rounds as well as more details and numbers (English).

• For PRO subscribers: Google Sheet with funding data, 1000+ rounds added during the past 12 months, updated daily (English).

News from the Swedish startup & tech sector

• NyTeknik released its annual list of Sweden's 33 most innovative and promising tech startups (Swedish, machine translation).

• The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) published the annual IVA 100 list featuring 103 research projects – including many startups – that are considered having great business and societal potential (Swedish, no machine translation available).

• Klarna has chosen to IPO in the US, after the Swedish fintech confidentially filed IPO documents with US regulators (English).

• Apotea, Swedish online pharmacy, confirmed its intention to become publicly traded at Nasdaq Stockholm (English).

• 27 companies have been added to the official Swedish AI Startup Landscape, bringing the total to 210 (English).

• Quantera AI, Stockholm-based AI-powered public market investor insights platform, launched on ProductHunt and became Product of the Day (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription in November 2023.

• Tibber, Swedish-Norwegian digital energy company, had data of over 50,000 German customers stolen by cyber criminals (English).

• Spotify is on course to achieve its first-ever full year as a profitable company (English).

• Einride founder and CEO Robert Falck is the only Swedish protagonist on Time Magazine's 2024 list of the "100 most influential climate leaders in business" (English).

• Volvo On Demand, Sweden's largest car sharing service with 200,000 users, is being shut down by its owner Volvo Cars "for profitability reasons as part of a group-wide effort to optimize costs" (English).

• The winners of the Nordic Women in Tech Awards 2024 were announced (English).

• The annual industry report "Swedish Games Industry 2024: Game Developer Index" has been released (English).

• Finland-headquartered VC firm Maki.vc has launched its third fund of €100M to invest in pre-seed and seed-stage startups across the Nordics and Northern Europe (English).

• Zakaria Hersi, serial entrepreneur and angel investor, joins The Inner Foundation as Investment & Portfolio Manager (English).


Do you have remaining 2024 budget?

Invest it in an annual Swedish Tech News PRO subscription!

The ideal way for Sweden-focused startup investors to lay the groundwork for a great deal flow throughout 2025. Details and purchase options here.

Swedish Tech News PRO gives startup investors, analysts, and VC teams an easy information advantage. Join today.

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond


• Silo AI and AI Finland launched the annual Nordic State of AI survey, aimed at CxO:s, VP/Directors of business or technology, and senior level developers and/or data scientists (English).

• A focus on growth may be coming back into fashion, at least among public cloud/software companies in the US (English).

• AI companies may have hit a scaling wall (English).

• A BCG report examining where the value is in AI (English).

• VC investment in the cryptocurrency sector fell significantly in Q3, to $1.7B (English).

• On the proper role of the board observer (English).

• Sweden is the first country in the world to have become "smoke free", as the number of smokers born in the country dropped below the 5% threshold (English).

• The digital competence of Swedish students is on a par with the average in the EU/OECD, according to a new study conducted in 34 countries. Sweden ranks worse than Denmark and Finland, and in line with Norway (Swedish, machine translation).

• Agnes Stenbom was named "AI Swede of the Year" for her work towards responsible AI development in journalism and the media industry (Swedish, machine translation).

• Almost 7 percent of Sweden's residents, or 710,000 people, live in socially vulnerable areas, according to a new report (Swedish, machine translation).

• 100 deaths in Swedish hospitals last year could be linked to a lack of staffed hospital beds or high workload (English, Swedish).

• The stores of Swedish alcohol monopoly Systembolag have stopped accepting digital IDs for age verification, as they apparently are too easy to fake (Swedish, machine translation).

• The Swedish police now has the ability to seize luxury items from people suspected of having ties to criminal gangs, when the items are believed to have been bought with money earned from illicit activities (English).

• A system that emits human sounds alongside train tracks to scare wild animals away and prevent collisions, has been tested successfully (Swedish, machine translation).

• Every year, the retail research organization HUI names Sweden's Christmas gift of the year. For 2024, they chose unisex fragrance (Swedish, machine translation).